In general, the present invention relates to the packaging into a suitable container and transport over some distance, of fluids in liquid form destined for use in a xe2x80x9cdownstreamxe2x80x9d, or subsequent, manufacturing/product-fabrication/test process. This disclosure is, by and large, not concerned with the transport and administering of medical solutions for mammalian use/consumption (including intravenous delivery of medicines and nutrients to humans and other mammals). But rather, the present invention relates to the novel containment for shipping and ultimate dispensing (preferably gravity fed) for ready use in a manufacturing/product-fabrication/test process (whether the process is deemed part of a commercial enterprise or done in a basic-research facility), of xe2x80x9cfluentxe2x80x9d substances from the same flexible vesselxe2x80x94without the need for mid-stream staging containers. The flexible walls of the vessel have an outwardly-facing identification indicia (for purposes of tracking/quality control and inventory) and are preferably made of a flexible material compatible with the fluent contents. A portable framework is used to support the vessel when dispensing its contents.
The filling of polymeric bags with liquids for storage and dispensing is not, by itself, new. Modern human and veterinary medicine conveniently uses intravenous fluid (xe2x80x9cIVxe2x80x9d) bags for bedside administration of medicine, nutrients, and other solutions (water, saline solution, dialysis solutions, etc.) to patients in hospitals, nursing-care facilities, clinics, mobile critical-care transporters (life-flight helicopters, ambulances, and medically-equipped airplanes), and to patients who are well enough to have been sent home. Apart from the medical use of polymeric bags-at least one thin flexible bag having a xe2x80x9ctent structurexe2x80x9d and a multi-component specially-designed dispensing valve has been patented in the U.S. The bag is filled with still wine, shipped, and stored intact until a keeper ring is stripped away so that a sharp plunger is free to thrust inwardly to pierce the bag. Although the patent indicates this tent structure bag can stand up on a table for dispensing, it has not been seen in general use. But rather, wine bags seen in kitchen refrigerators are supported by rectangular cardboard boxes designed for dispensing in a horizontal orientation.
On a much different and greater scale than this, one finds the instant invention. It addresses a need specifically identified by the inventor hereof in the manufacturing/production/test arena (whether for commercial production and/or basic research) for less-costly ways to ship and dispense solutions used in the commercial manufacture, research/bench-testing, fabrication for laboratory/research use, and so on, of products. In the past, the design efforts of storage and transport containers have been driven, by-and-large, by the requirement that the walls of the containers be compatible with the solutions contained therein (such as reagents, organics, cleaning/sterilizing solutions, pesticides, etc.). Glass bottles, although very breakable and heavy to transport, have primarily been the container of choice due to the relative stability of glass and the compatibility of glass with so many solutions. And, while wall-compatibility is an important design consideration of storage vessels (due to the need to use containers made of materials that are substantially inert with respect to corrosion and do not leach extractables into the solutions they contain)xe2x80x94wall-compatibility can no longer be the only major design consideration of solution storage vessels. This is especially true as shipping and handling costs continue to sharply increase; such costs include the additional labor of skilled technicians that must be employed to properly measure/dispense and carefully use (without contaminating) the solutions, the cost of brittle-container breakage during shipment and/or use, as well as costs associated with the sheer weight of hard walled containers.
Due to the ingenious effort and targeted problem identification, the novel apparatus and method of containing for transport and dispensing a fluent substance as well as the novel method of building an order for replenishing stock, disclosed herein, are targeted to processes performed in connection with commercial as well as basic research purposes-including the fabrication and/or analysis/test of products and constituents thereof, whether the product is headed for commercial sale; bench-testing of products and their constituents; beaker cleaning; and so on.
As one can appreciate, unlike the instant invention, known hard-walled storage containers used for transporting solutions delivered to a manufacturing plant or research environment generally require a substantial amount of labor-intensive packing material to surround the containers in order to ship them any distance using common carriers. Although there have been a couple of reagent bags patented as designed for specialized test equipment, these designs do not accommodate large-scale production or bench-test/laboratory use of reagent solutions. Surprisingly, there simply is no adequate low-cost storage-for-transport alternative to the hard-walled containers (made, mostly, of glass and brittle plastics) currently being used for shipping the large quantities of solutions used day-in and day-out in manufacturing and research facilities.
The new apparatus for transporting a fluent substance and method were developed to address the problems associated with shipping heavy, breakable hard-walled containers which are cumbersome to use and store in a manufacturing/test environment. The new apparatus and method, as designed, offer a lower-cost and less labor-intensive alternative that utilizes space more-efficiently while at the same time provides sufficient durability. As can be appreciated, in the spirit and scope of suggested design goals (whether expressly communicated herein) and as described further, the flexible-walled vessels can be fabricated from many suitable materials into many different shapes and sizes, filled with countless different types of reagents, cleaning solutions, solvents, pesticides and other fluent substances, then transported to, and used in, production/test environments (including food production) throughout the world.
It is a primary object of this invention to provide an apparatus and associated method for transporting in a flexible-walled vessel a fluent substance for ready dispensing there-from during a production/product-fabrication/test process (whether deemed part of a commercial enterprise or done in a basic-research facility). The vessel, which has an upper-end and a lower-portion having at least one port through which the fluent substance is dispensed, can be oriented by a support framework for the dispensing. It is also an object of this invention that such an apparatus and method utilize a valve of some type for controlling the dispensing of a preselected amount of the fluent substance during the process. A further object is to provide a method of building an order for replenishing stock of a fluent substance contained in a flexible-walled vessel having an indicia.
The advantages of providing the new apparatus and associated new methods are as follows:
(a) The inventive vessel is preferably used for one-time dispensing of its contents (and, thereafter, disposed-of). A vessel may be reused by refilling with an identical fluent contents for another dispensing (reuse depends on the level of sterilization needed for its fluent contents, as well as the structural integrity of the flexible material). Regardless of reuse, vessels are preferably reclaimed by recycling the flexible material after its contents has been dispensed.
(b) Versatilityxe2x80x94The invention can be used for dispensing reagents, cleaning solutions, solvents, pesticides, etc., used in a wide range of production/testing environments to carry out associated processes (whether carried out as part of a commercial enterprise or done in a basic-research facility) such as: end-product fabrication and/or QC testing; in-line monitoring and/or mixing of constituents of a product; sample bench-testing of end-products or constituents thereof for purposes of quality control (QC); bench-testing of a product undergoing research to assess its manufacturability; plus, testing/sample monitoring, etc., in a xe2x80x98purexe2x80x99 research sense of a material or substance (e.g., material identification, measuring properties and behavior, and so on).
(c) Simplicity of usexe2x80x94The new vessel allows for reliable transporting to a dispensing site, ease of positioning/orienting for dispensing, plus straightforward repositioning within the process, as necessary, and later removal of the vessel from the process, all without disruption of the production/test environment.
(d) The design of the apparatus and method is such that it allows for handy integration into automated equipment currently in use in the lab or on-the-floor. The use of the apparatus in automated equipment decreases the opportunity for mistakes and safety hazzards associated with making large quantities of chemical reagents and transporting from a mixing site to equipment.
(e) Structural design flexibility-The vessel may be fabricated of flexible stock material (whether tube-stock, sheet-stock, multi-layered, etc.) formed into one of many suitable egonomic shapes of varying capacity depending upon: space available within the production/test process, the fluent substance contained and transported in the vessel, its use in the process, and the specific design of the framework fabricated to support the vessel during dispensing of its contents.
(f) Design for cost-effectivenessxe2x80x94The vessel, as designed, lowers the cost to ship (especially, since the vessel walls are preferably not hard/brittle and heavy), and the novel indicia on the vessel can include many coded pieces of information for cost-effective automatic tracking of vessel xe2x80x98where-aboutsxe2x80x99 as well as tracking use of its contents (especially important for inventory control, tracking lots, monitoring product shelf-life, and so on). The new method allows useful information to be provided at a faster rate. By eliminating certain labor-intensive steps in a production/test process, such as the handling, measuring, and sterilization/aseptic-warming of reagents, cleaning solutions, pesticides, and/or other solutions (typically done by skilled technicians), production and lab costs may be greatly decreased.
(g) Design for decreasing the chance of operator errorxe2x80x94The novel apparatus and method are targeted to decrease the amount of handling required by technicians during vessel transport and the dispensing of its contents in a production/test process. Operator handling has traditionally included: removing the correct bottle from shelving holding many similarly-shaped hard walled bottles, pouring-out and measuring the requisite amount of the liquid reagent into a clean beaker, warming/sterilizing/mixing the beaker and its contents if necessary, dumping the contents of the beaker into a test tube or vat to carry-out a predesignated step in the production/test process (e.g., a chemical reaction, analysis, the dissolving of a solute, cleaning to remove rust/corrosion, etc.), cleaning the beaker for reuse. Decreasing such operator handling in a production/test process can substantially decrease the costs associated with carrying out the process, especially where highly trained technicians are needed to perform the operator handling (as is most often the case when performing steps to manufacture/produce/test chemicals whether destined for commercial use or done in a research facility).
(h) Design for volume dispensingxe2x80x94The framework incorporated in the apparatus and method of the invention may, as needed, be designed to stage several of the novel vessels simultaneously (for example: several vessels can be hung from a sturdy projection of the framework by passing the projection through an opening fabricated into each of the vessels; several vessels can be oriented between corresponding pairs of forward and aft walls lined up between two extending side strut-walls; or each of a plurality of vessels can be oriented by sliding one of a plurality of vertical stem projections extending upwardly from a base of the framework, through a corresponding channel fabricated into the side of the vessel).
(i) Tracking method simplicity and efficiencyxe2x80x94The method of building an order for replenishing stock of the invention is straight-forward to integrate and implement into existing production and lab environments, especially using the novel indicia affixed to a vessel of the invention. This indicia also allows for automatic tracking of product/vessels along the production/test process. In light of strict internal quality control policies and federal regulations, as well as product liability concerns, reducing the number of manual steps required to order (including replenishing stock), track, and xe2x80x98inventoryxe2x80x99 fluent substances used in a production/test process makes the overall process more economically feasible and less-prone to operator error.
Briefly described, the invention includes an apparatus (having a flexible-walled vessel compatible with a fluent substance) for transporting the fluent substance and dispensing during a production/test process. The process (whether it is carried out in a production/manufacturing environment or a research-laboratory environment) is separate from a filling-site where the vessel is filled. The vessel, as oriented by a support framework for the dispensing, has an upper-end and a lower-portion. The lower portion has at least one port through which the fluent substance is dispensed during the process. This port is in communication with a primary flow channel and a valve for controlling the dispensing of a preselected amount of the substance as needed. The fluent substance can be selected from the group consisting of liquid reagents, cleaning solutions, solvents, pesticides, and/or other fluent substances used in a production/test type environment (not for direct mammalian consumption). The vessel preferably has an outwardly-facing indicia, and the vessel""s upper-end and a lower-end of the vessel""s lower-portion can be hermetically formed from sheet material such that: a volume is formed between these two ends having a capacity greater than that required to contain the preselected amount. A second flow channel, in communication with a second port of the vessel""s lower-end, may be added for filling the vessel at the filling-site (and, once a vessel is filled, this second flow channel can be blocked re-opened for re-filling). The framework, if used, can have a multitude of suitable structural designs.
The invention also includes a method of transporting a fluent substance for dispensing during a production/test process, including the steps of: providing a flexible-walled vessel with an upper-end and a lower-portion having at least one port in communication with a primary flow channel and a valve; filling the vessel, for the transporting, with the fluent substance at a filling-site that is separate from the production/test process; orienting the vessel (can be by way of a support framework); and dispensing through the valve, as needed, a preselected amount of the fluent substance. Preferably, the flexible-walls are made of a material compatible with the fluent substance and the vessel has an outwardly-facing indicia (whether coded). Again, the fluent substance can be selected from the many reagents, pesticides, and cleaning and other solutions.
Also characterized herein, is a method (and associated system) of building an order for replenishing stock of a fluent substance (contained in a flexible-walled vessel) for use in a production/test process (whether it is carried out in a production environment or a research-laboratory environment). This method incorporates a novel broadened use of such a vessel with an indicia (a portion of which is machine-readable). The steps include: reading the indicia; transmitting at least a part of the information provided by the indicia to a remote processor; accessing a database with the remote processor to search for a package record that corresponds with the indicia information; using the indicia information, update and review an inventory file record (maintained by the remote processor); and generating the order for acceptance and, once accepted, automatically transmitting a request for determining a shipping-carrier and availability of stock at a warehouse. The step of reading the indicia can include using a computerized device to read the portion which is machine-readable, and/or visually reading the indicia and manually inputting a package serial number (PSN) therefrom to an input device at a dispensing location. A first-pass order may be generated and modified (via display), if necessary, prior to acceptance.
There are additional features that further distinguish this method of the invention: Adding the step of awaiting credit approval for the accepted order prior to performing the automatic transmission of a request (and the method may also require that, prior to giving this credit approval, a guarantee of payment of the order must be received by electronic transmission); and, the step of transmitting indicia information preferably includes connecting to a global information network through a modem interconnected to a computer-processing-unit (CPU) at a dispensing location where the production/test process takes place, and accessing a remote modem interconnected to said remote processor.